


Sidequest

by cognomen



Category: Final Fantasy XII
Genre: Drunkenness, Gen, Implied Relationships, M/M, madhu
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-15
Updated: 2014-07-15
Packaged: 2018-02-08 23:45:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1960785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cognomen/pseuds/cognomen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Vaan has had worse ideas. Not many - certainly his plot to convince Bhujerba that he was worth the attention of their underground faction by claiming to be a dead man twice his age had been at least as bad as this.</p><p>The boy's discovery of Madhu - the potent alcoholic beverage, honeyed and sweet and favored in Bhujerba - had woken his curiosity. When he had discovered it would fetch an excellent price within the city, he had dragged them around to procure bottles for resale.</p><p>Balthier had claimed one for his own, and Vaan's ire had been implacable.</p><p>"You can't drink that! I'm going to sell it."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sidequest

**Author's Note:**

> A short challenge piece written for a month of challenges between whiskeyandspite & I.
> 
> I'm fonder of this on the second read through.

Vaan has had worse ideas. Not many - certainly his plot to convince Bhujerba that he was worth the attention of their underground faction by claiming to be a dead man twice his age had been at least as bad as this.

The boy's discovery of Madhu - the potent alcoholic beverage, honeyed and sweet and favored in Bhujerba - had woken his curiosity. When he had discovered it would fetch an excellent price within the city, he had dragged them around to procure bottles for resale.

Balthier had claimed one for his own, and Vaan's ire had been implacable.

"You can't drink that! I'm going to sell it."

"You've sold twelve," Balthier had responded, but he had surrendered the thirteenth bottle to the boy anyway, when the protestations had become steadily more shrill and ungainly. 

Curiosity was a trait that Balthier would usually laud. In this circumstance, while the blonde and underdressed boy attempts to serenade the conclave of Moogles, he concludes that Vaan has rather more curiosity and rather less sense and reserve than to know how properly it should be used.

"You had no need of such anyway," Fran reminds him, her slim ears twisting to limit the amount of Vaan's voice that enters them. She tips her head, knowingly, and sees through Balthier to his core.

"I had intended to share," he laments, rolling his shoulders in a slow shrug. "Though I suppose Vaan's folly is a fine lesson to take. Do you suggest I might be singing and dancing amongst Moogles should I have had my proper due?"

Fran's answer is a dark, knowing look in her eyes, a spare smile. "I would never suggest you might debase yourself, Balthier."

She would never suggest, he allowed, but she would watch him do it with relish. He laughs, and allows his partner to count her coup. 

The moogles learn the gist of the song Vaan is singing - something very nearly bawdy, and yet just edging the subject. Balthier has the notion that there is a cactus - of course, it was like as not a Dalmascan tune given the simplicity of the piece - a chocobo, and a cluckatrice, and all metaphors for a cock in some way. 

He abandons the boy to the Moogles.

When he stumbles upon the actual Captain Basch, leaving the one time claimant behind in the streets to dance until he fell over or someone with more pity came to reclaim the boy, he is surprised when the other lifts a hand to beckon him over.

In the other, he spies a brown bottle, sealed at top with thick red wax. Balthier, contrary to his own nature, answers the beckons. He reminds himself not to make a habit of it, though it is easy where the Captain is concerned.

"Basch," he begins, before the other can begin. "How is it that you had further success keeping a prize from Vaan's sharp nose?"

Basch smiles, showing attractive lines around his blue eyes, and Balthier is reminded that he's handsome, now that he is clean and has had enough meals under his belt. It is easier, with Basch like this, not to think of the filthy, cracked fingernails of the prisoner they had first encountered. To forget the prominent ribs, the back puckered and pink and cut with a whip.

"I was a soldier once, Balthier," Basch reminds, and he offers a wink.

"I do hope that means you'll share," Balthier implies, heavily, but Basch has never much minded an infringement or several upon his person. It is one of his better features. 

"It does," he agrees. 

"Then soldier on, Captain, we had best secret ourselves somewhere that will hide our foolishness if we succumb," Balthier suggests, with a glance back toward the square, where Vaan's voice still attempts to convince all and sundry of the benefits of a large cactus.


End file.
